Archive for Free
New Extracts: The Age Atomic, The Marching Dead and Black Feathers
Posted by: | CommentsThe Age Atomic, by Adam Christopher, The Marching Dead, Lee Battersby and Black Feathers by Joseph D’Lacey are all officially on-sale in the UK/EU next week (from Thursday 6th to be precise), but are already our in US/CAN print and ebook editions.
Here’s a taster from each to whet your appetite for more…
Click on the widgets below to activate them and read a free sample from each book, or use the links beneath each widget to visit issuu.com, where you’ll find sharing buttons, embed code, links and all sorts, should you wish to add any or all of these extracts to your own blog or website.
The Age Atomic
by Adam Christopher
The sequel to Empire State – the superhero-noir fantasy thriller set in the other New York.
The Empire State is dying. The Fissure connecting the pocket universe to New York has vanished, plunging the city into a deep freeze and the populace are demanding a return to Prohibition and rationing as energy supplies dwindle.
Meanwhile, in 1954 New York, the political dynamic has changed and Nimrod finds his department subsumed by a new group, Atoms For Peace, led by the mysterious Evelyn McHale.
As Rad uncovers a new threat to his city, Atoms For Peace prepare their army for a transdimensional invasion. Their goal: total conquest – or destruction – of the Empire State.
Black Feathers
by Joseph D’Lacey
It is the Black Dawn, a time of environmental apocalypse, the earth wracked and dying.
It is the Bright Day, a time long generations hence, when a peace has descended across the world.
In each era, a child shall be chosen. Their task is to find a dark messiah known only as the Crowman. But is he our saviour – or the final incarnation of evil?
The Marching Dead
by Lee Battersby
Find the dead a King, save himself, win the love of his life, live happily ever after. No wonder Marius dos Helles is bored. But now something has stopped the dead from, well, dying.
It’s up to Marius, Gerd, and Gerd’s not-dead-enough Granny to journey across the continent and put the dead back in the afterlife where they belong.
New Extracts: The Mad Scientist’s Daughter, She Returns From War
Posted by: | CommentsAs it’s the season of good will and all that jazz, we thought we’d give you an early present in the form of another two free samples, this time from our February 2013 releases.
The Mad Scientist’s Daughter by Cassandra Rose Clarke is a stand-alone tale of love, loss and robotics. And She Returns From War by Lee Collins is the second Cora Oglesby weird western, sequel to The Dead of Winter.
Both books will be on-sale in the UK/EU from February 7th next year and in the US/CAN and ebook from January 29th.
Click on the widgets below to activate them, or use the links beneath to visit issuu.com, where you’ll find sharing buttons, embed code, links and all sorts, should you wish to add any or all of these extracts to your own blog or website.
The Mad Scientist’s Daughter
by Cassandra Rose Clarke
“Cat, this is Finn. He’s going to be your tutor.”
He looks and acts human, though he has no desire to be. He was programmed to assist his owners, and performs his duties to perfection. A billion-dollar construct, his primary task now is to tutor Cat. As she grows into a beautiful young woman, Finn is her guardian, her constant companion… and more.
But when the government grants rights to the ever-increasing robot population, however, Finn struggles to find his place in the world.
Following her acclaimed Young Adult debut for our sister imprint Strange Chemistry, The Assassin’s Curse, the very talented Cassandra Rose Clarke moves on to more adult themes, in a heartbreaking story of love, loss … and robots.
Read, download, share and embed via Issuu.com
She Returns From War
by Lee Collins
Four years after the horrific events in Leadville, a young woman from England, Victoria Dawes, sets into motion a series of events that will lead Cora and herself out into the New Mexico desert in pursuit of Anaba, a Navajo witch bent on taking revenge for the atrocities committed against her people.
Read, download, share and embed via Issuu.com
Enjoy!
New Extracts: Nexus, The Merchant of Dreams, The Bookman Histories
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s free samples time again! Check out these multi-chapter extracts from our three January 2013 releases: near-future science fiction thriller Nexus by Ramez Naam, Elizabethan swashbuckling and skullduggery saga The Merchant of Dreams by Anne Lyle and the three-in-one omnibus edition of the steampunk extravaganza The Bookman Histories by World Fantasy Award winner Lavie Tidhar.
All three books will be on-sale in print in the UK/EU from January 3rd 2013, slightly earlier in the US/CAN, and in ebook from December 18th from all your favourite book retailers.
Click on the widgets below to activate them, or use the links beneath to visit issuu.com, where you’ll find sharing buttons, embed code, links and all sorts, should you wish to add any or all of these extracts to your own blog or website.
Nexus
by Ramez Naam
In the near future, the experimental nano-drug Nexus can link human together, mind to mind. There are some who want to improve it. There are some who want to eradicate it. And there are others who just want to exploit it.
When a young scientist is caught improving Nexus, he’s thrust over his head into a world of danger and international espionage – for there is far more at stake than anyone realizes.
Read, download, share and embed via Issuu.com
The Merchant of Dreams
by Anne Lyle
The second book in the Night’s Masque series (sequel to The Alchemist of Souls)
Exiled from the court of Queen Elizabeth for accusing a powerful nobleman of treason, swordsman-turned-spy Mal Catlyn has been living in France with his young valet Coby Hendricks for the past year.
But Mal harbours a darker secret: he and his twin brother share a soul that once belonged to a skrayling, one of the mystical creatures from the New World.
When Mal’s dream about a skrayling shipwreck in the Mediterranean proves reality, it sets him on a path to the beautiful, treacherous city of Venice – and a conflict of loyalties that will place him and his friends in greater danger than ever.
Read, download, share and embed via Issuu.com
The Bookman Histories
by Lavie Tidhar
An omnibus edition, collecting The Bookman, Camera Obscura and The Great Game.
Lizard Kings and swashbuckling pirates, secret government agencies and scuttling automata, tripods and airships.
There’s never been a series with quite so much adventure crammed between two covers!
Read, download, share and embed via Issuu.com
Enjoy!
Our October new releases will be unleashed on the world in just a couple of weeks’ time. Soon you’ll be able to head on down to your favourite bookstore (or make with the clicking on your favourite online retailer’s website) and grab a copy of The Wrong Goodbye by Chris F. Holm, Crown Thief by David Tallerman and the three-volume omnibus edition of The Knights of Breton Court by Maurice Broaddus. Once you have them safely in-hand (or on-reader) you can scamper off to your reading-cave and devour them without pause, snarling like a cornered wolverine at anyone who dares to disturb your literary reverie.
A few scant weeks later, you’ll no doubt feel the uncontrollable urge to repeat the process all over again, when our November book release – The Dead of Winter, the debut horror/western novel by new talent Lee Collins – hits the shelves.
In the meantime, here are four sets of sample chapters to help whip you into a frenzy of anticipation. Feel free to share them via your social media channel of choice, or embed the widgets on your own blog or website. Just click the relevant links to Issuu.com and then either the ‘Share’ or ‘Embed’ buttons, as required.
October 2012
November 2012
The Wrong Goodbye
by Chris F. Holm
The Collector, book two (sequel to Dead Harvest)
Meet Sam Thornton, Collector of Souls.
Because of his efforts to avert the Apocalypse, Sam Thornton has been given a second chance – provided he can stick to the straight-and-narrow.
Which sounds all well and good, but when the soul Sam’s sent to collect goes missing, Sam finds himself off the straight-and-narrow pretty quick.
Read, download, share and embed via Issuu.com
Crown Thief
by David Tallerman
The Tales of Easie Damasco, book two (sequel to Giant Thief)
From the Tales of Easie Damasco…
Meet Easie Damasco: Thief, swindler and lately, reluctant hero.
But whatever good intentions Damasco may have are about to be tested to their limits, as the most valuable – and dangerous – object in the land comes within his light-fingered grasp. Add in some suicidally stubborn giants, an old enemy with dreams of empire and the deadliest killers in two kingdoms on his heels, and Damasco’s chances of staying honest – or even just surviving – are getting slimmer by the hour.
Read, download, share and embed via Issuu.com
The Knights of Breton Court (omnibus)
by Maurice Broaddus
The Wire meets Excalibur in this stunning urban fantasy.
From the drug gangs of downtown Indianapolis, the one true king will arise.
The King Arthur myth gets dramatically retold through the eyes of street hustler King, as he tries to unite the crack dealers, gangbangers and the monsters lurking within them to do the right thing.
Read, download, share and embed via Issuu.com
The Dead of Winter
by Lee Collins
Cora and her husband hunt things – things that shouldn’t exist.
When the marshal of Leadville, Colorado, comes across a pair of mysterious deaths, he turns to Cora to find the creature responsible. But if Cora is to overcome the unnatural tide threatening to consume the small town, she must first confront her own tragic past as well as her present.
New Extracts: The Hammer and The Blade, Suited, vN, The Crown of the Usurper
Posted by: | CommentsHere’s another batch of sample extracts for you to read and enjoy.
Suited is the second book in Jo Anderton‘s Veiled Worlds series and is the sequel to Debris, for which Jo recently won the Best New Talent Ditmar Award.
The Hammer and the Blade is the first book in a brand new sword and sorcery saga – the Tales of Egil and Nix – by renowned Star Wars and Forgotten Realms author Paul S. Kemp.
The Crown of the Usurper is the stunning conclusion to the epic Crown of the Blood trilogy by esteemed Warhammer author Gav Thorpe.
vN is the hugely accomplished debut science fiction novel by Madeline Ashby; an author we guarantee you’ll be hearing a whole lot more about…
The first two books in this fine selection are our July releases and will be available in US/CAN paperback and ebook formats from Tuesday, June 26th, with UK/EU paperback editions following on Thursday, July 5th. The second two are our August books and will be published on Tuesday July 31st (US/CAN & ebook) and Thursday August 1st (UK/EU). Pre-orders can of course be placed with all good indie, online and major high-street bookstores right now…
The reader applets below can be embedded on your own website and the link to them spread far and wide via your regular social media channels. Right-click on the ‘issuu’ button in the bottom right-hand corner of each, then click ‘Share This Publication’ for options. You can also download the pdf versions to read offline if you prefer.
Suited
by Jo Anderton
The Veiled Worlds, Vol II
Tanyana has chosen to help the Keeper, to stand against the Puppet Men, who continue to force the Debris into unnatural creations.
And when even her own suit becomes aggressive against her, Tanyana must weigh some very personal issues against her determination to serve the greater good.
The Hammer and The Blade
by Paul S. Kemp
A Tale of Egil and Nix
Kill the demon. Steal the treasure. Retire to a life of luxury. Sounds easy when you put it like that.
Unfortunately for Egil and Nix, when the demon they kill has friends in high places, retirement is not an option.
The Crown of the Usurper
by Gav Thorpe
The stunning conclusion to the epic Crown of the Blood trilogy.
Ullsaard rules the known world. All are subject to his will.
Yet even as another king bows before him, there are those who would wrench his empire from beneath him. He must risk losing the lands he has conquered to confront a foe far more powerful than any he has faced before.
As alliances shift and old enemies return, will he save the empire he has given his life to, or let it fall to ruin?
vN
by Madeline Ashby
Amy Peterson is a von Neumann machine, a self-replicating humanoid robot.
For the past five years, she has been grown slowly as part of a mixed organic/synthetic family. She knows very little about her android mother’s past, so when her grandmother arrives and attacks her mother, little Amy wastes no time: she eats her alive.
Now she carries her malfunctioning granny as a partition on her memory drive, and she’s learning impossible things about her clade’s history – like the fact that the failsafe that stops all robots from harming humans has failed… Which means that everyone wants a piece of her, some to use her as a weapon, others to destroy her.
A Free Split Worlds Short Story a Week, Courtesy of Emma Newman
Posted by: | Comments
This Guest Post is by newly-signed AR Author Emma Newman.
Come into the Split Worlds
So the dust is settling and my little corner of the internet is returning to normality following the announcement that the Split Worlds series is now in the gentle care of our favourite Robot Overlords. I thought it would be a good time to promise to send you a free short story set in the Split Worlds every week for a year and a day, if you want me to that is, and explain why I’m offering to do so.
As I mentioned on the lovely Adam Christopher’s blog, the Split Worlds series started life as a self-publishing project and up until very recently I was gearing up to launch the first book of the series Between Two Thorns. Part of that process involved releasing a short story every week set in the Split Worlds for a year and a day, a total of 54 short stories, plus a bonus one if people signed up to receive the stories by email.
It’s quite a daunting thing to commit to, but something I don’t regret at all. Here’s why:
I’m a great big geek.
For me, the Split Worlds project has never just been about writing lots of stories and several novels. At the risk of sounding a bit silly and pretentious what I want to create is something immersive, something that incorporates elements from my favourite hobby: roleplaying.
I’ve been playing and GMing for years. I missed out on early experiences of D&D, my schooling was in White Wolf’s World of Darkness games such as Vampire: The Masquerade. At university I was in the Roleplaying Games Society and student life was a glorious few years of regular tabletop and live action games ranging from high fantasy to gritty cyber-punk, occasionally interrupted by lectures and essays and exams. It played a big part in spawning my love of dressmaking and it’s where I caught the world-building bug too.
As a player, one of the things I love most about a really good game is the total immersion. I want to see it all in my head, I want to experience things outside the scope of my normal life. I love little details and the depth that long-term campaigns can create between characters. As a GM I revel in the creation of other worlds and characters within them, of tensions and alliances between factions and snaring my players in twisty plots.
Since those heady days I’ve knuckled down to novel and short story writing and my aim with the Split Worlds is to bring all of the things I love most together into one project. I want to create an opportunity for people who love characters and fantastical worlds to really be able to climb inside, to notice little details and make connections, to find hints and clues to things that will spill out into the real world (more about that another time). The stories are the first part of this, not only do I want them to introduce you to the Split Worlds, I also want to give you that moment of quiet satisfaction when you read a passing reference to an event in Between Two Thorns and you know what really happened.
Does this mean someone has to read all those stories to enjoy the books?
No, not at all. I really want to emphasise that. The Split Worlds novels are written to be enjoyed without any of the stories and those in turn could be read alone as nothing more than little glimpses into the Split Worlds. But if you do want to read the stories, I hope they deepen your enjoyment of the novels and make some of the future events I have planned a richer experience.
Curious?
Each of the stories is short enough to be read in the time it takes to have a nice cup of tea and a biscuit. All you need to do to sign up is complete the form below (or over at www.enewman.co.uk/free-stories) and look out for the activation email you need to act upon to confirm you signed up and not an evil spammer or particularly clever cat walking across your keyboard.
Once that’s done you’ll get a story straight away and then one every seven days until the very last one. That’s just over a year of weekly tea-break reading. You have to bring your own tea though.
Check out Emma’s blog and website at www.enewman.co.uk, find out more about the Split Worlds at www.splitworlds.com and follow her on Twitter @EmApocalyptic.
Free Samples of Every Angry Robot Book
Posted by: | CommentsWe don’t always blow our own trumpet, so having spent a few, slightly tedious hours on a very hot day assembling the latest batch of samplers of some upcoming Angry Robot titles, we thought it worth reminding all you deeply lovely AR readers that we do, as standard, offer a free excerpt from every single one of our books.
There’s a lot of talk about eBook piracy at the moment. And there are all sorts of reasons. Some of them – “I like having stuff for free, so I’m going to take it; I’ll never get caught” – are a little hard to help with, short of some ghastly state surveillance program which nobody much wants. Others, though, we understand and we’re keen to help with if we can.
Ebooks are expensive - well, ours are always priced below their comparative physical fellows. We still have to pay for editing and proofreading, design and all that, but we’ve knocked off the cost of printing for you. (And don’t forget that at the moment, in the UK eBooks are subject to 20% VAT where print books aren’t.)
I can’t get them in my country - actually, you can buy our eBooks, DRM-free, from any country in the world. We also release our editions through all major eBook outlets, in as many countries as we can but notably across North America and Europe, in the same week.
I only wanted to read a sample, see if I liked it enough to buy it… – And here we are. That’s why we’re very happy to sit here on a sweltering day preparing more natty little 50-page selections from our upcoming releases for you.
Below the jump (or further down the screen if you’re not on our homepage at the moment) you’ll find a selection of our recent excerpts, each one inside a cute little app thing. Take them, host them on your own site if you like (it’s very easy, and makes your blog look grrrreat), send them to your mates, share them wherever. Then check out the individual book pages here on the site for samples of our entire range.
And if you like the free samples we give you, you might even want to buy our lovely books, which you can do over at The Robot Trading Company (our very own webstore) or your regular eBook or pBook retailer of choice.
[Image Credit: Rather fabulous pirate kindle blatantly nicked from bookish.livejournal.com - no accreditation given there, so if it's yours, please let us know and we'll either add in a credit link or take it down...]
New Extracts: Strangeness & Charm by Mike Shevdon, Night’s Engines by Trent Jamiseon
Posted by: | CommentsTime now for more of our regular free extracts. Here are sample chapters from the two books that we’re officially publishing on June 7th (available in the US/CAN and eBook editions from May 29th).
Strangeness and Charm is the third part of Mike Shevdon’s fabulous urban fantasy series, The Courts of the Feyre (book one: Sixty-One Nails, book two: The Road to Bedlam).
Night’s Engines is the second and concluding part of Trent Jamieson’s weird and quite wonderful science fantasy saga The Nightbound Land (book one: Roil).
The app-viewer thingies below can be embedded on your own website and the link to it spread far and wide via your social media channel of choice, if you feel the urge to share some free fantastic fiction. Right-click on the ‘issuu’ button in the bottom right-hand corner of each, then click ‘Share This Publication’ for options.
Strangeness and Charm
by Mike Shevdon
The Courts of the Feyre, Vol III
Alex has been saved from the fate that awaited her in Bedlam, but in freeing her, Niall has released others of their kind into the population. Now, as Warder, he must find them and persuade them to swap their new-found liberty for security in the courts – but is the price of sanctuary to swap one cage for another?
More information about the book
Night’s Engines
by Trent Jamieson
The conclusion of the Nightbound Land duology
Shale is dying. The vast, boiling maelstrom known only as the Roil has pushed humanity to the edge of extinction. The last cities teeter on the verge of collapse.
There is one hope, but it is enshrined in a decadent wastrel who does not want his destiny, and a young woman who seeks only an end to everything. And yet they go on, in search of the ancient weapons that worked against the Roil once, and must work again.
Empire State comic, song and more stories
Posted by: | CommentsOver at EmpireState.cc, we’ve seen some great new works appear over the last couple of weeks.
The latest of which is Silver Specter – a comic by Hugo winner, Cheyenne Wright.
Also available is an original song by Angry Robot’s theme-tune sccribe, John Anealio.
And plenty more.
Head on over to the Empire State WorldBuilder site and see what else is new (and it’s all free!)
Here’s the first page of Silver Specter to whet your appetites…
New Extracts: Blackbirds, Evil Dark and The Nekropolis Archives
Posted by: | CommentsNext month is the Merry Month of May – the month of blooming flowers, spring sunshine and country dancing, yes? Not at Angry Robot it isn’t, no. At Angry Robot we’ll be doing our level best to throw a spanner in the works of all that jollity, levity and general pleasantness with a triple dose of dark, dark supernatural fiction, via the publication of Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig, Evil Dark by Justin Gustainis and The Nekropolis Archives by Tim Waggoner.
But why wait until May to bring the darkness, when you can get a head-start with extracts from all three titles, right here?
Blackbirds
by Chuck Wendig
The first Miriam Black novel
Miriam Black knows when you will die. She’s foreseen hundreds of car crashes, heart attacks, strokes, and suicides.
But when Miriam hitches a ride with Louis Darling and shakes his hand, she sees that in thirty days Louis will be murdered while he calls her name. Louis will die because he met her, and she will be the next victim.
No matter what she does she can’t save Louis. But if she wants to stay alive, she’ll have to try.
More information about the book
Read at issuu.com | Download ePub | Download Mobi
Evil Dark
by Justin Gustainis
The second Occult Crimes Unit Investigation
“My name’s Markowski. I carry a badge. Also a crucifix, some wooden stakes, big vial of holy water and a 9mm Beretta loaded with silver bullets.”
A series of seemingly motiveless murders of supernatural creatures points to a vigilante targeting the supe community of Scranton.
Markowski wouldn’t normally have much of a problem with that, but his daughter may be next on the killer’s list…
More information about the book
Read at issuu.com | Download ePub | Download Mobi
The Nekropolis Archives
by Tim Waggoner
A three-volume Angry Robot Omnibus edition
Meet Matt Richter. Private Eye. Zombie.
His mean streets are the city of the dead, the shadowy realm known as Nekropolis.
You’ve got to keep your head in Nekropolis. But when you’re a zombie attempting to battle the vampire lords, that’s not as easy as it seems…
This massive omnibus editions collects all three Matt Richter novels – Nekropolis, Dead Streets and Dark War – plus a swathe of short stories too.
